The Reminiscences of an Astronomer Part 4

"But I thought he studied medicine in Fredericton or Maine or somewhere on the border."

"Oh, he went off to the States and pretended to study, but he never did it. I tell you he ain't no more a doctor nor I am. He ain't smart enough to be a doctor."

I fell into a fit of musing long enough to hear, in my mind's ear, with startling distinctness, the words of two years before: "This world is all a humbug, and the biggest humbug is the best man.

. . . You have a window in your breast and you must close that window before you can succeed in life." Now I grasped their full meaning.

Ten years later I went through the province by rail on my wedding journey. At Dorchester, the next village beyond Moncton, I was shown a place where insolvent debtors were kept "on the limits."

"By stopping there," said my informant, "you can see Dr. Foshay."

I suggested the question whether it was worth while to break our journey for the sake of seeing him. The reply of my informant deterred me.

"It can hardly be worth while to do so. He will be a painful object to see,--a bloated sot, drinking himself to death as fast as he can."

The next I heard of him was that he had succeeded.

I reached St. John on the evening that a great celebration of the commencement of work on the first railway in the province was in progress. When things are undecided, small matters turn the scale.

The choice of my day for starting out on my adventurous journey was partly fixed by the desire to reach St. John and see something of the celebration. Darkness came on when I was yet a mile or two from the city; then the first rocket I had ever beheld rose before me in the sky. Two of what seemed like unfortunate incidents at the time were most fortunate. Subsequent and disappointing experience showed that had I succeeded in getting the ride I wished in the stage, the resulting depletion of my purse would have been almost fatal to my reaching my journey's end. Arriving at the city, I naturally found all the hotels filled. At length a kindly landlady said that, although she had no bed to give me, I was quite welcome to lie on a soft carpeted floor, in the midst of people who could not find any other sleeping place. No charge was made for this accommodation.

My hope of finding something to do which would enable me to earn a little money in St. John over and above the cost of a bed and a daily loaf of bread was disappointed. The efforts of the next week are so painful to recall that I will not harrow the feelings of the reader by describing them. Suffice it to say that the adventure was wound up by an interview at Calais, a town on the Maine border, a few miles from Eastport, with the captain of a small sailing vessel, hardly more than a boat. He was bound for Salem. I asked him the price of a pa.s.sage.

"How much money have you?" he replied.

I told him; whether it was one or two dollars I do not recall.

"I will take you for that if you will help us on the voyage."

The offer was gladly accepted. The little craft was about as near the opposite of a clipper ship as one can imagine, never intended to run in any but fair winds, and even with that her progress was very slow.

There was a constant succession of west winds, and the result was that we were about three weeks reaching Salem. Here I met my father, who, after the death of my mother, had come to seek his fortune in the "States." He had reached the conclusion, on what grounds I do not know, that the eastern part of Maryland was a most desirable region, both in the character of its people and in the advantages which it offered us. The result was that, at the beginning of 1854, I found myself teacher of a country school at a place called Ma.s.sey's Cross Roads in Kent County. After teaching here one year, I got a somewhat better school at the pleasant little village of Sudlersville, a few miles away.

Of my abilities as a manager and teacher of youth the reader can judge. Suffice it to say that, looking back at those two years, I am deeply impressed with the good nature of the people in tolerating me at all.

My most pleasant recollection is that of two of my best pupils of Sudlersville, nearly my own age. One was Arthur E. Sudler, for whose special benefit some chemical apparatus was obtained from Philadelphia. He afterwards studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and delighted me by writing that what I had taught him placed him among the best in his cla.s.s in chemistry. The other was B. S. Elliott, who afterward became an engineer or surveyor.

One of my most vivid recollections at Ma.s.sey's relates to a subject which by no means forms a part of one's intellectual development, and yet is at the bottom of all human progress, that of digestion.

The staple food of the inhabitants of a Southern farming region was much heartier than any to which I had been accustomed. "Pork and pone" were the staples, the latter being a rather coa.r.s.e cake with little or no seasoning, baked from cornmeal. This was varied by a compound called "shortcake," a mixture of flour and lard, rapidly baked in a pan, and eaten hot. Though not distasteful, I thought it as villainous a compound as a civilized man would put into his stomach.

Quite near my school lived a young bachelor farmer who might be designated as William Bowler, Esq., though he was better known as Billy Bowler. He had been educated partly at Delaware College, Newark, and was therefore an interesting young man to know.

In describing his experiences at the college, he once informed me that they were all very pleasant except in a single point; that was the miserably poor food that the students got to eat. He could not, he declared, get along without good eating. This naturally suggested that my friend was something of a gourmand. Great, therefore, was my delight when, a few weeks later, he expressed a desire to have me board with him. I accepted the offer as soon as possible.

Much to my disappointment, shortcake was on the table at the first meal and again at the second. It proved to be the princ.i.p.al dish twice, and I am not sure but three times a day. The other staple was fried meat. On the whole this was worse than pork and pone, which, if not toothsome, was at least wholesome. As the days grew into weeks, I wondered what Delaware College could give its students to eat. To increase the perplexity, there were plenty of chickens in the yard and vegetables in the garden. I asked the cook if she could not boil some vegetables and bring them on the table.

"Mas'er Bowler don't like wegetable."

Then I found that the chickens were being consumed in the kitchen and asked for one.

"Mas'er Bowler don't like chicken," was the reply, with an added intimation that the chickens belonged to the denizens of the kitchen.

The mystery was now so dark and deep that I determined to fathom it.

I drew Mr. Bowler into conversation once more about Delaware College, and asked him what the students had to eat when there.

He had evidently forgotten his former remark and described what seemed to me a fairly well provided students' table. Now I came down on him with my crusher.

"You told me once that the table was miserably poor, so that you could hardly stand it. What fault had you to find with it?"

He reflected a moment, apparently recalling his impression, then replied: "Oh, they had no shortcake there!"

In 1854 I availed myself of my summer vacation to pay my first visit to the national capital, little dreaming that it would ever be my home. I went as far as the gate of the observatory, and looked wistfully in, but feared to enter, as I did not know what the rules might be regarding visitors. I speculated upon the possible object of a queer red sandstone building, which seemed so different from anything else, and heard for the first time of the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution.

On the very beginning of my work at Ma.s.sey's the improvement in my position was so remarkable that I felt my rash step of a few months before fully justified. I wrote in triumph to my favorite aunt, Rebecca Prince, that leaving Dr. Foshay was the best thing I had ever done. I was no longer "that boy," but a respectable young man with a handle to my name.

Just what object I should pursue in life was still doubtful; the avenues of the preferment I would have liked seemed to be closed through my not being a college graduate. I had no one to advise me as to the subjects I should pursue or the books I should study. On such books as I could get, I pa.s.sed every spare hour. My father sent me Cobbett's English Grammar, which I found amusing and interesting, especially the criticisms upon the grammar found here and there in royal addresses to Parliament and other state papers. On the whole I am not sure but that the book justified my father's good opinion, although I cannot but think that it was rather hypercritical. I had been taught the rudiments of French in Wallace when quite a child by a Mr. Oldright, of whose methods and p.r.o.nunciation my memory gives me a most favorable impression. I now got Cobbett's French Grammar, probably a much less commendable book than his English one. I had never yet fathomed the mysteries of a.n.a.lytic geometry or the calculus, and so got Davies' books on those subjects. That on the calculus was perhaps the worst that could be put into the hands of a person situated as I was. Two volumes of Bezout's Mathematics, in French, about a century old, were, I think, rather better. Say's Political Economy was the first book I read on that subject, and it was quite a delight to see human affairs treated by scientific methods.

I finally reached the conclusion that mathematics was the study I was best fitted to follow, though I did not clearly see in what way I should turn the subject to account. I knew that Newton's "Principia"

was a celebrated book, so I got a copy of the English translation.

The path through it was rather th.o.r.n.y, but I at least caught the spirit here and there. No teacher at the present time would think of using it as a text-book, yet as a mental discipline, and for the purpose of enabling one to form a mental image of the subject, its methods at least are excellent. I got a copy of the "American Journal of Science," hoping it might enlighten me, but was frightened by its big words, and found nothing that I could understand.

During the year at Sudlersville I made several efforts which, though they were insignificant so far as immediate results were concerned, were in some respects of importance for my future work.

With no knowledge of algebra except what was derived from the meagre text-books I could pick up,--not having heard even the name of Abel, or knowing what view of the subject was taken by professional mathematicians,--I made my first attempt at a scientific article, "A New Demonstration of the Binomial Theorem." This I sent to Professor Henry, secretary of the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution, to see if he deemed it suitable for publication. He promptly replied in the negative, but offered to submit it to a professional mathematician for an opinion of its merits. I gladly accepted this proposal, which was just what I wanted. In due course a copy of the report was sent me. One part of the work was praised for its elegance, but a lack of completeness and rigor was pointed out. It was accompanied by a pleasant note from Professor Henry remarking that, while not so favorable as I might have expected, it was sufficiently so to encourage me in persevering.

The other effort to which I refer was of quite a different character.

A copy of the "National Intelligencer," intended for some subscriber who had left Sudlersville, came to the post-office for several months, and, there being no claimant, I frequently had an opportunity to read it. One of its features was frequent letters from volunteer writers on scientific subjects. Among these was a long letter from one G. W. Eveleth, the object of which was to refute the accepted theory of the universe, especially the view of Copernicus.

For aught I knew Mr. Eveleth held as high a position as any one else in the world of science and letters, so I read his article carefully.

It was evidently wholly fallacious, yet so plausible that I feared the belief of the world in the doctrine of Copernicus might suffer a severe shock, and hastened to the rescue by writing a letter over my own name, pointing out the fallacies. This was published in the "National Intelligencer"--if my memory serves me right--in 1855.

My full name, printed in large capitals, in a newspaper, at the bottom of a letter, filled me with a sense of my temerity in appearing so prominently in print, as if I were intruding into company where I might not be wanted.

My letter had two most unexpected and gratifying results. One was a presentation of a copy of Lee's "Tables and Formulae," which came to me a few days later through the mail with the compliments of Colonel Abert. Not long afterward came a letter from Professor J. Lawrence Smith, afterward a member of the National Academy of Sciences, transmitting a copy of a pamphlet by him on the theory that meteorites were ma.s.ses thrown up from the volcanoes of the moon, and asking my opinion on the subject.

I had not yet gotten into the world of light. But I felt as one who, standing outside, could knock against the wall and hear an answering knock from within.

The beginning of 1856 found me teaching in the family of a planter named Bryan, residing in Prince George County, Md., some fifteen or twenty miles from Washington. This opened up new opportunities.

I could ride into Washington whenever I wished, leave my horse at a livery stable, and see whatever sights the city offered.

The Smithsonian Library was one of the greatest attractions.

Sometime in May, 1856, I got permission from the attendant in charge to climb into the gallery and see the mathematical books. Here I was delighted to find the greatest treasure that my imagination had ever pictured,--a work that I had thought of almost as belonging to fairyland. And here it was right before my eyes--four enormous volumes,--"Mecanique Celeste, by the Marquis de Laplace, Peer of France; translated by Nathaniel Bowditch, LL. D., Member of the Royal Societies of London, Edinburg, and Dublin." I inquired as to the possibility of my borrowing the first volume, and was told that this could be done only by special authority of Professor Henry.

I soon got the necessary authority through Mr. Rhees, the chief clerk, whose kindness in the matter deeply impressed me, signed a promise to return it within one month, and carried it in triumph to my little schoolhouse. I dipped into it here and there, but at every step was met by formulae and methods quite beyond the power of one who knew so little of mathematics. In due time I brought the book back as promised.

Up to this time I think I had never looked upon a real live professor; certainly not upon one of eminence in the scientific world. I wondered whether there was any possibility of my making the acquaintance of so great a man as Professor Henry. Some time previous a little incident had occurred which caused me some uneasiness on the subject. I had started out very early on a visit to Washington, or possibly I had stayed there all night. At any rate, I reached the Smithsonian Building quite early, opened the main door, stepped cautiously into the vestibule, and looked around. Here I was met by a short, stout, and exceedingly gruff sort of a man, who looked upon my entrance with evident displeasure. He said scarcely a word, but motioned me out of the door, and showed me a paper or something in the entrance which intimated that the Inst.i.tution would be open at nine o'clock. It was some three minutes before that hour so I was an intruder. The man looked so respectable and so commanding in his appearance that I wondered if he could be Professor Henry, yet sincerely hoped he was not. I afterward found that he was only "Old Peake," the janitor. [4] When I found the real Professor Henry he received me with characteristic urbanity, told me something of his own studies, and suggested that I might find something to do in the Coast Survey, but took no further steps at that time.

The question whether I was fitted for any such employment now became of great interest. The princ.i.p.al question was whether one must know celestial mechanics in order to secure such a position, so, after leaving Professor Henry, I made my way to the Coast Survey office, and was shown to the chief clerk, as the authority for the information.

I modestly asked him whether a knowledge of physical astronomy was necessary to a position in that office. Instead of frankly telling me that he did not know what physical astronomy was, he answered in the affirmative. So I left with the impression that I must master the "Mecanique Celeste" or some similar treatise before finding any opening there.

I could not, of course, be satisfied with a single visit to such a man, and so called several times during the year. One thing I wondered about was whether he would remember me when he again saw me. On one occasion I presented him with a plan for improving the Cavendish method of determining the density of the earth, which he took very kindly. I subsequently learned that he was much interested in this problem. On another occasion he gave me a letter to Mr. J. E. Hilgard, a.s.sistant in charge of the Coast Survey office.

My reception by the latter was as delightful as that by Professor Henry. I found from my first interview with him that the denizens of the world of light were up to the most sanguine conceptions I ever could have formed.

At this time, or probably some time before, I bought a copy of the "American Ephemeris" for 1858, and amused myself by computing on a slate the occultations visible at San Francisco during the first few months of the year. At this time I had learned nothing definite from Mr. Hilgard as to employment in his office. But about December, 1856, I received a note from him stating that he had been talking about me to Professor Winlock, superintendent of the "Nautical Almanac," and that I might possibly get employment on that work.

When I saw him again I told him that I had not yet acquired such a knowledge of physical astronomy as would be necessary for the calculations in question; but he a.s.sured me that this was no drawback, as formulae for all the computations would be supplied me.

I was far from satisfied at the prospect of doing nothing more than making routine calculations with formulae prepared by others; indeed, it was almost a disappointment to find that I was considered qualified for such a place. I could only console myself by the reflection that the ease of the work would not hinder me from working my way up.

Shortly afterward I understood that it was at least worth while to present myself at Cambridge, and so started out on a journey thither about the last day of the year 1856.

At that time even a railroad journey was quite different from what it is now. The cars were drawn through Baltimore by horses. At Havre de Grace the train had to stop and the pa.s.sengers were taken across the river in a ferryboat to another train. At Philadelphia the city had to be traversed by transfer coaches. Looking around for this conveyance, I met a man who said he had it. He shoved me into it and drove off. I remarked with suspicion that no other coaches were accompanying us. After a pretty long drive the speed of the horses gradually began to slacken. At length it came to a complete stop in front of a large building, and I got out. But it was only a freight station, locked up and dark throughout. The driver mumbled something about his fare, then rolled back on his seat, seemingly dead drunk.